


Can You Believe?

by Chainthatbinds (orphan_account)



Series: Breaking In [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-14 23:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Chainthatbinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Novak family has a crisis. The brothers deal with the fact that their dad might be dead in different ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can You Believe?

_Nothing can make you high,_

_Or put fire in your eyes,_  
_Or give you a chance to fly,_  
_When you need the wings._  
_When all that you’ve got is doubt,_  
_And nothing can stop you from feeling down,_  
_But, oh, I know, I know exactly how you feel._

The head of the Novak family had been pronounced dead. His private jet left John F. Kennedy International Airport at 6:27 PM and hadn’t been heard from since. The flight from there to Kansas City should’ve been no more than a few hours. Three weeks later, everyone presumed him and his crew to be deceased. Everyone except his five adopted sons accepted this. They hadn’t given up on him. They couldn’t. They’d practically been programmed to have nothing but faith in the one man who had molded them into exactly who they are now.

Many people didn’t understand their father and his actions. Most of the time, Michael, Lucifer, Raphael, Gabriel and Castiel were among those people. But it wasn’t their place to comprehend his actions. Their only tasks were to be the best people that they could be and make him proud. They had to accept that he did everything for a reason. They had to believe that he wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to them on purpose and that he was only looking out for their best interests.

_But can you believe now?_  
_When you’re on your knees now,_  
_Begging and pleading now,_  
_Can you believe?_

It seemed as if Raphael took the news the best. Their father may have been prepping Michael to take over the company and to watch for his younger siblings but Raphael had always been the hardest worker and the most dependable under pressure. Giving his brothers time to grieve and not worry over the painful details, he put on his business face and dealt with the press. He was the one in contact with their lawyer. He was the one speaking to the senior partners of Novak Engineering and keeping his brothers updated on the information in a way that he knew they could handle. It would be easier coming from him than someone outside the immediate family.

To say that Raphael wasn’t affected by the loss of his father would be grossly inaccurate. He kept himself busy on purpose. While he was dealing with public statements and working through the Last Will and Testament with the attorney, it was easier to keep his personal feelings behind a wall. He had to be professional and keep things moving. Part of it was because none of the others were past denial enough to accept that their father wouldn’t just walk through their front door any minute.

Mostly, it was because he felt like if he didn’t push forward, everything he was running from would catch up and he’d die too. It always felt like it was only a few feet behind him. Sometimes, when he was at a stoplight while driving from one place to the next, he swore he felt something creeping inside of him and trying to grab hold of anything it could reach. It usually started with a tightening in his throat before it progressed to constriction in his lungs and it eventually felt like he had to focus on the muscles of his heart just to keep it beating.

Raphael knew that sooner or later he’d have to deal with it all. All the work he’d been piling on himself would eventually get finished and new things to do were already starting wane in comparison to how much there had been before. It was terrifying to think about but he knew it was inevitable. He would just have to find something else to do and keep it away for as long as he could because, at the moment, it felt like he would shrivel up and cease to exist when that day did come along.

_When all that you’ve got is doubt,_  
_And no one to pull you out,_  
_When your heart is slowing down,_  
_Can you believe?_

Michael refused to believe anything when he received the news. In his eyes, there was no way that his father could be gone. He was all but invincible to Michael. He grabbed Lucifer by the shoulders and shook him vigorously when his younger brother delivered the information to him while he was at work. It all seemed like a big, horrible joke that was being pulled on him. He didn’t find it funny and told Lucifer that over and over.

It was when he saw the exhausted expression on Lucifer’s face and the fragile look in his eyes that he accepted that his father was missing. Michael didn’t go so far as believe that he was dead, though. That would be as good as saying that the man he’d looked up to was less than the perfect being Michael had made him out to be in his mind. Instead, he pulled Lucifer forward by the shoulders he’d been holding onto him with and hugged his little brother.

Lucifer was stiff with shock at the gesture at first. Michael genuinely cared for all of his brothers (even if Lucifer and he never saw eye to eye) but he wasn’t one for physical expression. Then, the younger Novak realized it wasn’t a gesture meant to comfort _him_. It was for Michael’s benefit. He needed something solid to hold on to so he could see it wasn’t all one twisted dream and that maybe, just maybe, things could be all right.

Lucifer didn’t know if everything would work out but he told Michael that it would anyway. Neither of them spoke to anyone for the next three days but they were inseparable.

_See the person I love the most is so far away tonight._  
_And no other medicine or promises are gonna heal me up right._  
_But I got to believe that him and me will be together,_  
_‘Cause that’s all I’ve got..._

Castiel took the news the hardest. It wasn’t because he had a stronger bond with their father than his older siblings or anything. It was due to him being in his second week of college at Princeton University. He didn’t have his brothers or extended family near him. Thousands of miles kept him away from his safety net of loved ones and, with the news he’d just received, that was making it even harder to breathe. Him finding out over the phone made it worse. To add insult to injury, one of his professors, Fergus McLeod, said (in a roundabout way that he would never get caught for) that he would make the youngest Novak’s first semester a living Hell if he skipped his class. He wasn’t going anywhere. His father wouldn’t want him to anyway, if he was still around.

Cas left his dorm and found a small, secluded corner of campus and cried for hours. His body seemed to lose its ability to do anything except cry. He didn’t want to be like this. He had never been a crier. Now it felt everything he had repressed was coming out alongside the gut-punching, soul-wrenching news. His father, the man who’d taken him from an orphanage somewhere in Russia sometime in his first year of his life and gave him a life that any of the other orphans would be blessed to have anything half as good, was gone. How else could he process this? What else was there for him to do with it all when he felt completely, utterly alone?

“Jesus, Cas.” Castiel looked up with his red, eyes and saw Dean through his blurry, tear-filled vision. He was frozen in place, taking in the state that his boyfriend was in. Cas opened his mouth to ask what he was doing here but Dean beat him to the punch. “Gabe called me. He told me everything.”

“How did you find me?” Castiel’s voice was gravelly and his throat hurt with every sound that passed through it.

Dean moved forward, sat next to Cas and pulled him into his side with a strong embrace. “Easy. I just looked for the spot here that looked like your favorite hiding spot back at high school.” There was a small smile on his face but it was soft and full of sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Cas. I’m here for you.”

Castiel leaned his head against Dean’s chest and pushed out another painful sentence. “You don’t need to be.”

Dean pulled him as close as he could and put his head on top of Cas’. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I already told my teachers what’s goin’ on and they gave me an excused absence for the next few days. I’m gonna be here for you.”

Cas forgot sometimes how dedicated (and stubborn) Dean could be. This time, though, he was grateful for it. Instead of protesting, he nodded silently and continued to let his emotions get the best of him, letting his tears and sobbing be absorbed into Dean’s shirt.

_And Oh, I know..._  
_When you’re down at the bottom,_  
_Can you believe?_

Gabriel was supposed to be celebrating his graduation from culinary school and landing his first real job as a pastry chef. Instead, he just acted... normal. He acted like nothing was wrong. He worked hard, doing what was expected of him. He made jokes and played pranks on his friends and family. Some welcomed the levity. Others were more than a little upset as his behavior at a time of grieving. Overall, though, no one got the big joke. No one understood that the self-claimed trickster was merely going through the motions.

He was acting that way because it was expected of him. Even those that didn’t like how Gabriel was behaving assumed that the second-youngest would show out in this way. He was giving the people what they wanted. In his head, it made the most sense. How much worse would it make things if the one person everyone expected to have a joke and smile on his lips was just as down as everyone else? If Raphael was the one in charge of the family’s external affairs, Gabe was the one in charge of keeping morale as high as it could possibly get.

The problem was, he didn’t want the job. He wanted desperately to be in the same boat as the others. He made the sacrifice, though. It was the least he could do for his family.

Lucky for him, he found an outlet. The executive chef at _Kali_ (his new job) was a hard-ass but she seemed to have a soft spot for Gabriel. During the small bits of downtime they had between lunch and dinner rushes, she would pull him into her office. Most of his coworkers automatically assumed that something sexual was going on between them. While they weren’t wrong, more times than not, the woman was just there, letting the man pour his heart out and say whatever he couldn’t say anywhere else.

_Can you believe when all hope seems gone?_  
_When your mother and father cant keep you safe from harm,_  
_Can you forgive in your heart?_  
_Can you ask for forgiveness?_  
_When nobody else believes, can you believe?_  
_Can you believe in yourself?_

Lucifer was wracked with guilt. Since he was six years old, he and his father had fought almost constantly. As a child, it was the usual cases of “why don’t you let me” or “I don’t wanna.” As an adolescent, it was more of “why don’t you let me” and some “I can do what I want” with a little “I hate you” added in where he could fit it. In his late teens and now early twenties, it was all about past and present disobedience and the disapproval of such actions. There was less yelling but the looks he’d been given were probably more painful than anything that had ever been said.

Now, with his father gone, Lucifer had to live with the fact that he had never apologized for anything he’d done. The second oldest Novak rarely admitted being in the wrong, least of all to his father. Even when he did, he not once said he was sorry. He considered it retribution for all the times he’d been wronged and hadn’t been given any sort of acknowledgement to how he’d been angered, frustrated or hurt.

Now, though, he wished he’d said “I’m sorry” each and every time. He would’ve even said it during the times when he was sure he was right, just in case he’d realize he wasn’t later on down the line. Being right didn’t seem to matter as much as the possibility that Lucifer’s father could be dead and died angry with him.

When Michael finally started talking again, his first words were to Lucifer. “I don’t know what to do.”

Lucifer nodded, knowing what he meant. “All you can do is continue to live. Be who you are. Do what you would normally do.”

Michael examined his brother’s face intently before asking, “What would I normally do?”

Lucifer smiled as best as he could. “Be our father’s good little soldier. Continue on his legacy by taking care of his business and his other sons.”

Michael lowered his head, thinking it through. “And what will you do?”

Lucifer laughed lightly. “The same thing I always do. I’ll be right behind you, trying to make your job as difficult as possible.”

Michael smiled for the first time in over a week. He and all of his brothers were far from recovering from the huge loss they’d taken but, at least in that moment, the oldest son felt that there was a chance they could keep it together and move forward. They had to. It was what their father would want from them, where ever he might be.

_If nobody’s watching,_  
_You will never know._  
_If somebody’s watching,_  
_You will never know..._

**Author's Note:**

> http://chainthatbinds.livejournal.com/


End file.
